Arizona law enforcement agencies mostly say they won't
participate in widespread immigration raids that target long-term
undocumented immigrants no matter what President Donald Trump's new executive
order says.

Citing limited resources and Arizona’s controversial history, many local
and state law enforcement officials said they have no plans to amp up
their immigration enforcement in light of a Trump's order.

The Phoenix, Tucson and Nogales police departments, and Yuma, Santa
Cruz and Maricopa sheriffs say officers will not target long-term
undocumented immigrants who have no violent felony offenses.

Cochise County Sheriff Mark Dannels clarified earlier remarks, saying his officers would not
target people simply for being long-term undocumented residents, yet if they
commit any crime, officers will turn them over to immigration officials.

Dannels said Cochise County pursues all lawbreakers equally.

“We’re not going to just target the illegals,” Dannels said. “Those
[who] break the state law, we will charge them. Whether they are legally
or illegally here.”

The Pima County Sheriff's Department didn't immediately respond to a request for comment about enforcement priorities under new Sheriff Mark Napier.

The executive order, which Trump signed Jan. 25,
in addition to pushing for the immediate planning and construction of a
border wall, directed the federal government to “empower state and local
law enforcement agencies across the country to perform the functions of
an immigration officer.”

About 5 percent of Arizona's population — some 325,000 people — are undocumented immigrants, according to the Pew Research Center.

So Wednesday, when ICE jailed and promised to deport Guadalupe García
de Rayos, a 21-year-old, long-term undocumented immigrant who was
brought to Arizona when she was 14, the decision startled her family and
many immigrant right activists.

And the Phoenix Police Department is being very clear: it was not
involved in the detention of Rayos. The department said it was only on
the scene because of the protestors that came out en mass to support
Rayos.

"The Phoenix Police Department does not target
anyone and was not a part of any recent events involving undocumented
immigrants with minor criminal offenses," Sgt. Jonathan Howard of the
PPD said. "We will continue to enforce Arizona state laws, like identity
theft and theft, but have no plans to implement a pro-active
immigration enforcement squad."

Phoenix isn't alone. At the Tucson Women's March, Mayor
Jonathan Rothschild made it clear that he will advise Tucson officers
not to prioritize and seek out long-term undocumented immigrants,
regardless of their minor criminal offenses.

The Nogales Police Department will not participate in the
prioritization of long-term undocumented immigrants, according to its
public information officer, Christina Bermudez.

"Nothing will change here," Bermudez said about targeting long-term
undocumented immigrants, even those with minor criminal offenses.

The Maricopa County Sheriff's Office will not be targeting long-term
undocumented immigrants with minor criminal offenses, either.

"We have received no specific directives from Department of Homeland
Security regarding the executive order," said Mark Casey, spokesman for MCSO, stating
the sheriff will not target long-term undocumented immigrants. "While we will abide by both our constitutional duties and by the directives of the court, we will not be doing raids, nor will we tolerate targeting individuals because the color of their skin

Yuma County sheriff officials said nothing will change there either,
saying they will not be prioritizing long-term undocumented immigrants
with minor criminal offenses.

Santa Cruz County sheriff officials oppose having their deputies act as immigration officers.

"I have not had any official order to start doing immigration work,"
said Santa Cruz County Sheriff Tony Estrada. "We are not immigration
officers. We do not have the authority. I do not welcome that, and
hopefully it is something that we will not have to do."

“As far as I’m concerned it’s business as usual unless some specific
order or mandate comes up that changes the law that makes us immigration
officers, and I think we’re a long way from that and that’s something
we don’t need,” said Tony Estrada. Santa Cruz County encompasses 50 miles of the U.S.-Mexico border, including Nogales.

Estrada said his department cooperates with Customs and Border
Protection officers and Border Patrol agents, who have a significant
presence in his county. He said his deputies call Border Patrol if they
have “reason to believe that an individual is in the country illegally.”
But he said he simply doesn’t have the resources to enforce immigration
law

Quentin Mehr, a state Department of Public Safety spokesman, said DPS
does not plan for Arizona officers to search for undocumented
immigrants. DPS will not be prioritizing long-term undocumented
immigrants, as the executive order calls for.

Dannels said Cochise County pursues all lawbreakers equally.

"We're not going to just target the illegals," Dannels said. "Those
[who] break the state law, we will charge them. Whether they are legally
or illegally here."

Part of Trump’s order calls for a renewed push for 287(g) agreements,
which are a provision of the Immigration and Nationality Act that allow
the Department of Homeland Security to deputize local and state law
enforcement officers to act as federal immigration agents to
investigate, apprehend and detain undocumented immigrants.

Seven Arizona law enforcement agencies had active 287(g) agreements
in May 2008, according to ICE data, that allowed some departments to
check immigration status in their jails and others to have immigration
enforcement authority while patrolling the streets. Many of these
agreements expired or were scaled back during the Obama Administration,
leaving only four agencies in Arizona with active agreements today,
according to ICE.

These agencies – Arizona Department of Corrections, Mesa Police,
Pinal County Sheriff’s Office and Yavapai County Sheriff’s Office – only
have authorization to check immigration status in their detention
centers.

Three of the four departments with active agreements said they don’t
anticipate expanding their 287(g) capabilities to allow immigration
enforcement on the streets.

A spokesperson with the Mesa Police Department declined to be
interviewed on the subject and did not respond to emailed follow-up
questions by the time of publication.

Chief Deputy Matt Thomas of the Pinal County Sheriff’s Office said his county benefits from the 287(g) program in the jail.

“Rather than cycle people through our jail that are in the country
illegally and have committed crimes we cycle them through and once we
finish state charges, they are handed off to ICE to face the immigration
charges,” he said. “Obviously there’s a lot of emotion around this
particular topic but we’re really just trying, at the local level, to do
our best for our citizens without infringing on people’s rights.”

The agencies that previously had active 287(g) agreements – Phoenix
Police, the Department of Public Safety and Pima County Sheriff’s Department
– said they do not have plans to resurrect those agreements after
Trump’s order.

“We want crime victims and witnesses to feel comfortable reporting to
police regardless of their residential status,” said Sgt. Jonathan
Howard, a spokesman for Phoenix Police, in an emailed statement.

Phoenix's mayor went a step further Thursday, following
large protests opposing the deportation of a Mesa mother who had lived
in the U.S. for decades. She was detained Wednesday and deported to
Mexico Thursday afternoon.

“Rather than tracking down violent criminal and drug dealers, ICE is
spending its energy deporting a woman with two American children who has
lived here for more than two decades and poses a threat to nobody,”
Stanton said Thursday. “It is outrageous, and precisely
why as long as I am mayor, Phoenix will not participate in the 287(g)
program or enter into any other agreements with the Trump Administration
that aim to advance his mass deportation plans.”

A Gallup poll
showed that two-thirds of Americans oppose deporting undocumented
immigrants, and 84 percent are in favor of building a path to
citizenship for long-term undocumented immigrants. Even over
three-fourths of Republicans support a path to citizenship, according to
the poll.

A CBS News Poll
from Jan. 13-16, 2017, showed similar results, with a majority of
respondents favoring a program for undocumented immigrants to stay in
the U.S. and eventually apply for citizenship.

"I don't think federal government has the right nor should they have
the authority to tell us what to do with immigration," Estrada said.

SB 1070 rewind?

“It was a dark and awful time for our state and what was so sad about
this executive order was it really reminded me of that period in our
history in 2010,” she said. “People were afraid and there was so much
outrage.”

The state law went beyond the 287(g) agreements, which limited the
enforcement to criminal task forces and excluded undocumented immigrants
who hadn’t committed a crime from being affected. Being in the U.S.
illegally is a civil offense.

But SB 1070, even after portions of the law were struck down by the
Supreme Court, requires law enforcement making routine traffic stops or
arrests to attempt to determine someone’s immigration status if the
officer has “reasonable suspicion” that they are undocumented.

The law was embraced by the Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office, which
also dedicated extensive resources to 287(g) agreements under the
previous sheriff, Joe Arpaio. In October 2016, he was charged with
contempt of court after a judge said he intentionally defied orders to
stop racially profiling Latinos during traffic stops and workplace raids
conducted in search of undocumented employees.

“Arpaio for us, he’s the worst case scenario,” Soler said. “So when
you start entering into these types of agreements it opens the door to
racial profiling and other illegal practices, like prolonging the time
of an arrest just to check someone’s status.”

Arpaio’s successor, Sheriff Paul Penzone, said in a statement his office
would no longer conduct workplace raids, saying the practice was “an
exaggeration of law enforcement resources and tactics.” Court monitors
have been placed in the sheriff’s office to ensure their practices
follow the rules of the court orders Arpaio incurred.

Casey, the MCSO, said the process for
referring undocumented immigrants who are arrested to ICE is “very
complex and very cumbersome and very slow which is a bad thing because
it requires us and everyone to deliberate how we’re going about dealing
with human beings.”

Penzone’s campaign centered around improving community relations, and Casey said he aims to correct previous wrongs.

“Our predecessor here engaged in wholesale racial profiling in the
name of immigration enforcement the was taken to court and was found to
be acting in a manner that is outside the law,” Casey said. “No matter
where this ends up, we’re going to follow the law and court orders and
treat people humanely and with respect no matter what their culture or
citizenship status.”

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